Oh, my goodness, what a difference having that new chainsaw made!
But before I could break it in, I needed to drag down the stuck tree, so I could use the wood in the high raised bed. Thanks to my husband very securely attaching the hooks I got to the rope I got – rope rated to 450 pounds – it was a simple matter to use the van to pull it out.
My goodness, where those top branches ever entangled! When I started pulling it, it didn’t fall, but stayed stuck until I got far enough that the tree was no longer dragging on the ground, but lifting up. At which point, it rolled up and got dragged over the compost ring, then finally it broke free from the branches and dropped.
Right on the cherry trees we are intending to cut away, so there’s no loss there!
After replacing a large divot of sod that got dragged out, I then used the baby chain saw to start cutting away the branches, and cutting away the top of the tree.
Then it got rolled onto the compost ring, so the rest of the branches could be trimmed off.
Finally, it was time to break out the new chainsaw!
Of course, I took the time to read the manual, first, then added chainsaw oil to the reservoir.
Then I measured out and cut a pair of nine foot lengths from the tree trunk.
The bucksaw does a great job, but the chainsaw did in mere seconds what would have taken me probably 5, maybe even 10, minutes, per cut, by hand!
Then, while I dragged the logs over to the high raised bed, I helped a daughter move the rest of the tree trunk aside, so they could set up the wood chipper. They cleaned up all the dead branches from the tree, as well as the little cherry trees we’d cut away to access the last tree we’d cut down.
They spent more time prepping the branches to fit the chipper and shredder, than actually doing the chipping and shredding! Unfortunately, the little spruce branches were so twisted, they ended up clogging the shredder chute to the point that my daughter had to take it off to unclog it. Once that was cleared up, they did a few celebratory shreds before heading inside to start on supper.
Meanwhile…
I started working on the high raised bed by first taking it apart! I cut away the notches in the base logs so that the cross pieces would sit lower, and no longer have that gap that was there before. I also was able to clean up the cuts and make adjustments, as needed.
The new nine foot lengths were thicker than I thought, so after I put the bottom cross pieces back, I used the new logs for the next level.
I ended up not needing to cut notches in them at all. Instead, I was able to just adjust and cut the notches in the next level of cross pieces to fit.
It was SO much faster and easier to cut the notches with the chain saw! Pretty much every notch we’d cut before needed modification.
I used smaller, thinner, logs at the top, which turned out to be a pain. These are from higher in the tree, which meant they were not as straight, and had more little branch stubs all over. I ended up having to trim logs along their lengths to get rid of lumpy bits, so things would sit against each other better.
Then I went and cut two more four foot lengths to do the last cross pieces.
There we have it! The high raised bed is built!
Standing next to a corner, it’s just barely reaches my hip. For mobility and accessibility purposes, we could probably have gone higher than this, but I think this will be fine.
Now, we just need to fill it! We’ve got old logs for the bottom, with corn stalks, leaves, grass clippings and garden waste to layer in. I’ll add thin layers of soil in between each layer of organic matter before topping it off with soil for about the depth of the top logs.
That will be a job for tomorrow!
I may have had to juggle the budget a bit to get that chainsaw, but it was worth every penny. There is no way I could have finished this today, without it. In fact, I have my doubts I would have been able to finish it before winter, at the rate things were going!
About the only other thing we might end up doing with this is maybe get some short pieces of rebar, drill holes through the top couple of logs and set the rebar in them to really make sure the logs stay in place.
It’s really a horrible, messy, slapdash job, but it will still probably last us many years.
Now we just need to cut down more dead trees, so we’ll have the material to build more!
With our goal of stocking up as much as we can for the winter, on the assumption that we will have a month or two where we cannot get out to buy necessities, our monthly shop is being split up into multiple trips, so as not to overload the van.
Also, I hate shopping, so… babying the van is a handy excuse to keep it shorter. ;-)
I was heading out on my own for this trip, so I made the smaller Walmart trip, which let me make a shorter trip to the nearer, smaller city. The main thing I wanted to stock up on there was the cat kibble. They have more variety than Costco does.
Well. Most of the time.
Almost all the dry cat food was out of stock!
At least they still had the big bags of the cheap stuff – which even got restocked while I was there.
Yikes!
With six bags of dry cat food in the cart, there wasn’t much room for people food, but I got enough to tide us over until we can make the Costco trip. I even remembered to pick up a couple of shelf brackets for the second shelf in the outhouse, but I had no luck finding the battery operated LED switch plate I want to put on the wall across from the mirror.
Once I got what I needed there, I then went across the street to a Canadian Tire. Normally, we’d pick up more of the wood pellets we use for litter there, but I didn’t have room for more big bags in the van, so that will wait for the big trip. I got a quart sized can of paint to do the lettering on the sign I’m making, to replace the one that was stolen. We still have some of the bright blue we used to paint the picnic table left, but I decided to go with something darker for the sign.
The person in the paint department that knew how to use the machine to tint the paint was on break, so I used that time to find the heavy duty rope, and some hooks, so we can finally pull that stuck tree down. I also looked for the LED switch plate light I wanted for the outhouse, but there was nothing. It’s a novelty light, so I’m not too surprised they haven’t been restocked. Ah, well.
Canadian Tire is a dangerous place for me to be, with money!
Of course, I found a few other little things we needed, but then I found my new toy.
Yes, I bought a chain saw!
It was on clearance. I decided it was worth going into my seed budget to buy it – and I still have half my seed budget left!
Yes, it’s just a house brand, and yes, it’s electric. I figure I can realistically at least get a couple of years out of it before I wear it out completely. ;-)
It will, however, save me massive amounts of time and labour! Now that we have what we need to pull that stuck tree out, it’ll be much faster to break it down into the lengths I need to finish the high raised bed. Heck, I’m even thinking of taking it apart so I can tidy up the notches and make it fit together, better! No more using the baby chainsaw until the batteries are dead, then using a hammer and chisel for the rest! No more bucksaw to cut the lengths I need! Heck, with a 14″ blade, I might even be able to get more of the dead trees down this fall! If the weather holds – dare I consider it? – I might even be able to make at least one more high raised bed. Gotta clean up the existing beds, first, however, there is one bed left the girls didn’t get to clean up in the main garden area, yesterday. We might be able to “clean up” that bed, by making a second high raised bed there, instead! We’d have to cut down at least one, maybe two, more dead trees to do it, though.
Oooo… Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, here!
We shall see. Today, we got rain. Lots of rain, so it’s a write off for working on the garden beds. We should have two or three days to get work done before we get a day with rain and snow. After that, it’ll get chilly, with possible snow, but the long range forecast tells me we will remain above freezing during the day, well into November.
With the chain saw and the wood chipper, we should be able to get a lot more done, in a much shorter time. Meanwhile, while I was working on this post, my husband securely attached the new hooks to the new rope I got, which means I can pull that tree out tomorrow, and get to work!
Gosh, I’m all excited, just thinking about it.
So the trip was very productive, though I was more than glad to be done. Half way down an aisle at Canadian Tire, one of my knees decided to try and dislocate, making me VERY glad to have a shopping cart to lean on!
Being old and broken kinda sucks. ;-)
Once at home, after the girls unloaded the van and I changed a burnt out bulb in one of my headlights, I took the time to top of the kibble for the outside cats. It was still raining, so the cats were… well, check it out!
Hilariously adorable, is what they were!
They love that space under the kibble house! I’m sure they love having that sheet of insulation to keep their toes warm, too. :-)
One of the things I hoped to do was build smaller version of the kibble house for the water bowls. I don’t think we’ll be able to build it this year; from what I’ve seen in the barn and sheds, we don’t have the materials to complete it. They really like having a nice shelter from the rain, for their food, though!
I got the chipper assembled, and we’ve tested it out. Here’s how it went.
This is after lifting the box off, and removing the bubble wrap around that biggest chute. It was deep in that chute, under other stuff, that I found the instruction booklet.
Which included detailed instructions on how to remove the chipper from the box. :-D
Time for assembly!
The tops of the shredder chute had to be put on first, then the handle. It wasn’t until that was on that I could grip it well enough to manhandle the chipper over the blocks holding the wheels in place, and the rest of the assembly was done outside.
Which didn’t take very long at all. :-)
Once it was together, I had to go and get fuel and oil. We had only a few litres of fuel left for the lawnmowers, so I had to refill the 20L jerry can anyhow. This thing takes 10W30 oil, and everything else we’ve got – including our van – uses 5W30. Oh, except the new push mower. That uses 0W30.
In reading the manual, it said to put in about 1.1L of oil, no more.
The oil, however, comes in quarts, or 946ml Which meant needing 1.16 quarts to max the oil level.
I bought two and filled it with one. The level should be checked before each new use, or at least waiting until after it has had several minutes to cool down, so I’ll see if it needs to be topped up the next time we use it.
It came with its own oil funnel, which was greatly appreciated. The opening is tucked well under the engine, and the oil funnels I already have would not have reached, nor fit in the space!
The fuel tank on this thing is pretty massive! If I had not gotten more fuel, I would not have been able to fill it.
A couple of appreciated features. One is the removable gadget in the tank opening, with the red fuel level marker. The instructions made a big deal about not overfilling, and this makes a very handy visual reference. The other appreciated feature is the fuel gauge. Love it!
There was just one down side to the fuel tank, and that was with the cap itself. It takes a surprising amount of uumphf to turn the cap, and I couldn’t do it with my right hand at all, due to a combination of arthritis pain and that injured finger. My left hand has arthritis pain, but I still had enough hand strength to open the tank. Hopefully, over time, it will get easier to open.
Once it was all filled up with oil and fuel, I spent a bit more time going over the instructions before we were ready to test it out.
Ear protection is a must!
We also need to get more safety glasses. The pair I have got all scratched up somehow, to the point that I couldn’t see through them!
My daughter brought over the loppers and starting breaking down branches for me, while I set up the collector bag. It’s attached with only a drawstring. It held well enough once the chipper was started, but there were gaps that allowed chips to go shooting out over the fuel tank and around the engine. I’ll have to figure out if there is some better place to attach it. There is nothing in the instructions other than saying to put it over the diverter.
The collector bag is very durable, and I love the zippered bottom that makes it very easy to empty.
My daughter and I started on the branch pile closest to the garage to test it out. She had a bit of a surprise!
There was an old wasps nest in it. It was an active nest last year, so there were no wasps in it this year, but she didn’t know that when she uncovered it!
The chipper is also a shredder. The larger chute at the top is for leaves and small things, including branches no more than 1/2 inch in diameter. With this pile, that’s the chute we ended up using the most.
With the smaller chute, the maximum diameter is 3 inches, however that’s not just the width of the branch. If there is a bend in the branch, or any knobby bit from a smaller branch that was pruned off, it could be enough to prevent the branch from fitting.
The pile had a lot of very bent branches.
The worst of them, plus any pieces we had to cut off to allow the remaining branches to fit, got set aside. They will likely go into the burn pile.
We went through about 1/4 to 1/3 of the pile in about an hour. We did have to stop to take apart the smaller chute and remove a piece that got stuck. There was a little bit of a side branch sticking out just enough to catch on the opening under the rubber guard.
All those branches gave us this.
The larger pile is in the garden, near the high raised bed I am working on. The small pile is what built up under the chipper itself, that had blown out the top of the collection bag.
The chips are quite small. Smaller than the chips we had when the arborists came and cleared trees from the power lines and roof. I am quite happy with that. This will be used as we layer organic matter in the high raised bed, and will also be used as mulch, so the finer the better!
I’m also happy with how much less space the chips take up, compared to the branches they came from!
Another thing I really like about it; how easy it is to move around! This chipper is designed only to be moved manually; it’s not of a size that can be towed by, say, our riding mower. Which is perfect, because some of the places we will be using it in, don’t have space for a tow vehicle.
This thing is going to make such a HUGE difference in our clean up progress! It’s going to take quite a while to chip away the branch piles, but we have been adding to those piles for four years now, so that’s to be expected! Best of all, as we continue clearing away dead trees, we’ll be able to chip the branches right away, rather than dragging them over to the piles and making them even bigger.
Yesterday was Thanksgiving Day, and WOW! do I have a wonderful gift to be excited for!
A few days ago, I wrote about a proposal I’d made to my mother. Instead of spending thousands of dollars on a garden shed we do not yet have a prepared space for, I suggested she give us the money to put towards getting the tools and equipment needed to clean things up (things she is constantly complaining about). She said she would only discuss it with my brother. Not because he’s the one who now owns the property, but because he’s a man, and I shouldn’t be doing “men’s work.”
The day before Thanksgiving, my brother made the drive out to join my mother for church and go out for lunch. Among the things they talked about was the farm, and what we were doing. Of course, my mother was complaining about what a terrible job we are doing, and apparently my daughters don’t sweep the floor.
???
How she would even know that, one way or the other, I have no idea. It’s an assumption she’s making. My husband is Metis, which means he’s an Indian, and all Indians are dirty and have dirty houses, therefore we are dirty and never sweep the floor.
Aint’ racism fun? :-/
The irony is that, when I was a kid, my mother made a big deal about teaching me my “duties as a woman” and I was forced to do not only the housework, but things like making my brother’s beds – and hers! Basically, I was expected to be a little household slave. It was very much an abusive situation, though I didn’t understand that at the time, just as I didn’t understand for many years that my reaction to housework after having a family myself was what we now know as PTSD. I was fine if it was just me. I even had a job as a housekeeper at a resort hotel without any problem. As soon as other family members were part of the picture, however… well, let’s just say it was unpleasant. It took many years for me to recognize what was happening and work through it. I still have that response, but I now know how to spot it happening and take steps. What it comes down to, though, is that I am a terrible housekeeper directly because of the trauma she caused when I was a child. I couldn’t even begin to explain it to her. She wouldn’t be able to grasp it.
But I digress.
As my mother criticized me and my daughters for her perceived ideas of how we run the household, my brother tried to tell her to encourage me, rather than attack me. He even asked her outright if she were punishing me for not sweeping the floor, and she said yes!
Well, my brother is an amazing man, and he continued to defend me and tell her she needs to encourage me rather than attack me. She brought up about the “mess” in the yard – most of which are the branch piles – and in the end, she actually agreed to pay for a wood chipper.
!!!!
More specifically, she told my brother to make the arrangements, and she would pay for it.
Since equipment like this tends to be on short supply this time of year, my brother and his wife went shopping yesterday. They had to go to a bit far afield to find one in stock, but they did get one. Then, since it was already loaded in the car, they came over last night to drop it off!
This baby will chip branches up to 3 inches thick, and he made sure to pick the version with a more powerful engine.
It was starting to get dark by the time they got here, so I took a picture this morning. Yes, it’s still in the box. Today, I plan to spend some quality time with the instruction manual and assemble it. Hopefully, we’ll be able to start using it tonight. I will probably have to pick up more fuel, but it should already have the oil it needs. If not, I probably already have the right kind.
This morning, I phoned my mother to say thank you. She knew nothing about it, yet! My brother will bring her the full receipt (he left a gift receipt with me) later.
Of course, my other had to try and bring me down and made sure I knew that this actually belongs to my brother. Which is a given, as far as I’m concerned. What’s on the farm belongs to the farm, and the farm belongs to him. It’s just a matter of semantics, really. Still, he made sure to get this for me, because it’s a tool we need to do the job, and I am over the moon with excitement. We should be able to make a massive dent in all those branch piles, before winter sets in!
With today’s expected heat, I was out in the garden by 6am, and ended up staying out there for almost 3 hours, watering and weeding. The watering was started after replacing the connectors on three hoses.
I’m a goof, but it did work.
When I bought the connector repair sets, I got what was left on the display, and didn’t even think to look at the sizes. They are for 1/2 inch hoses.
We have 3/4 in hoses.
No matter. The clamps they came with could tighten enough to properly seal them. They will do while I am on the lookout for the right size connectors.
The little flexible piece I got for the tap, to prevent kinking, leaks. In several places! I guess I got a cheap one, though there wasn’t much choice. It still leaks less than it did before. One of the leaks is at the tap itself. Every single hose we’ve ever hooked up to that tap, leaks there. I plan to replace the tap itself, eventually. Meanwhile, there is some very luscious growth happening around the blocks we have under the tap. :-D
When I headed out again this evening, I got to break in the new action hoe.
What a fantastic tool!
I first tried it in one of the onion beds. It did well, but the onions are planted in a three row grid, and it just didn’t fit in between them, so there wasn’t a lot I could do with it, there. Mostly, I used it in the space in the middle, where the purple kohlrabi failed to grow.
It was at the Mongolian Giant sunflowers that it really did the job!
The soil here has always been rock hard, and baked bone dry. Right now, the only soft soil is the layer we put down for each row, and that was just a few inches deep. That anything we’ve planted here is growing at all is pretty remarkable. This thing worked like a dream!
Now, don’t get me wrong: it was still really hard to work around the sunflowers.The soil in between the rows is even harder now, as we walk between the rows to water things. It wasn’t just the hard soil, but also the very fibrous roots from the plants that were already growing here, and now enjoying regular watering for a change. This hoe was able to cut through those roots, and the rock hard soil at the edges of the paths. I was then able to pull out the cut weeds and their roots, before hilling the loose soil around the sunflowers a bit.
I am very impressed with this thing! The tool I was using around the corn before worked well; better than a regular hoe, but not as good as the action hoe. It was one of the unusual tools we’ve found around the place. The head of it is shaped almost like a mattock, except… not. LOL The “hoe” part of it is longer and narrower than a regular hoe, and it has a two pronged spike on the other side that I believe is a weeding tool. I’ve never tried to use that end, yet. It works really well at cutting into the hard soil. Better than a regular hoe, as least. Unfortunately, it’s quite old, and the head sometimes pops off the shaft.
I was doing one last row with the action hoe in the next corn bed, when my daughters came out to do the evening watering. My older daughter had finished watering the beds closer to the house with the hose, and when she came to continue watering where I was working, she told me about something awesome she found in the Montana Morado corn.
Silk!
Our very first corn to start showing silk!
If these are going to be maturing so unevenly, we may need to hand pollinate the silk, just to make sure they do get thoroughly pollinated. It would be pretty hit and miss to rely on the wind to pollinate the corn, when there might be only one or two corn plants ready to be pollinated at a time.
I am so happy that this corn seems to be working out so well!!
Today is supposed to be the last day of our heat wave. After this, we are dropping to more average temperatures. The expected high had been 38C/100C for a while, then it went down a few times. By morning, we were forecasted to hit 34C/93F, which we did hit. I don’t know what the humidex was. The forecasts for thundershowers tomorrow have shown up, disappeared, then showed up again, several times today! As I write this, it’s past 11pm, and we’re still at 28C/82F. The overnight low is expected to be not much cooler, but we are also supposed to get some rain, too.
I’ll believe that when I see it. From the looks of the weather radar, any rain or storms sweeping through are going to go right past us, and hit the city. But if we get even a little bit of rain, I will be happy. Even with all the watering we’ve been doing, twice a day, things are still really dry. I could really see that while weeding. Even at the start of the day, which the ground still looked damp from the previous evening’s watering. While hand weeding among the beets in the old kitchen garden, I had the hose set to mist, so the water would make it easier to pull the weeds out by the roots. I’d already watered the bed before I started weeding, yet when I pulled up the weeds, I could see how dry the soil still was.
When we build our permanent beds, having some sort of watering system would be very useful. We do have sprinklers we can use, but I’d rather have something less wasteful, like a drip system.
But that is something to figure out later. For now, we make do with what we have, and right now, that means watering twice a day with roughly 300 feet of garden hose and watering cans! :-D
Yesterday, a couple of our hoses sprang a leak. I still used them this morning, to do the morning watering. I took advantage of the leak whenever I could, and placed it where it would at least water something!
The water is spraying out of both hose ends. Where the hose is attached to the tap is also leaking, though nothing as bad as this, so today I headed to the nearer city to pick up what I needed to repair them. I was happy to see a flexible tap attachment that will prevent the hose connector from breaking at the tap, too.
After the watering was done, I took the canister of Critter Ridder and started spreading the granules. I did the old kitchen garden, and just barely had enough left to do the beet bed near the garlic. I figured I would need at least two more to be able to rest.
That turned out to not be an option.
They didn’t have the granules in stock; just the spray. I was going to try the spray when I noticed this.
This should be enough to spray around our beds, including the ones I should have planted in by now, and have some left over for later applications. I hope it works!
Since I was in the store anyhow, I went looking at the garden tools sections, and was very excited to find one of these.
It’s an “action hoe”. My brother has one and just loves it. They are very hard to find, however, because they sell out so quickly! So I grabbed one, even though it was a stretch on the budget. It will be a huge help, and there are spots I will finally be able to reach and weed properly!
The girls are going to be starting the evening watering, soon, though it will still be in the 30C/86F range. If we wait any longer, it’ll be too dark. Plus, the overnight temperatures will be staying high tonight. We aren’t supposed to drop to 25C/77F until 7am tomorrow, and by then, I’ll be heading out to do the morning watering! I’m hoping to get the hoses repaired before then, but even if I only get a chance to do one or two, it’ll be better than nothing, and the hoses are still useable at least.
Tomorrow is supposed to be our hottest day of the heat wave, with a forecasted high of 36C/97F and a humidex of 39C/102F. After that, we will quickly drop back to average temperatures for July. They are no longer predicting thundershowers for tomorrow, unfortunately. Now it’s just a 40% chance of precipitation, which for our area, probably means none at all. I wold have been happy for a good thunderstorm! We could really use the rain! Still, it means I can apply the animal repellent and not have it washed off right away, I guess.
It was a lovely day today, with the temperature at a glorious 3C/37F. With things still on track for our garden plans, I figured this was a good day to start some clean up and gather the materials that will be used to build trellises, etc.
This meant giving our new baby chainsaw (otherwise known as a cordless pruner, but that’s boring) its first workout, as I took down some of the little poplars along the south fence line of the spruce grove.
I’m just really excited to be able to do this work in March! I think the earliest I’ve ever been able to start this sort of work since we’ve moved here, has been in May.
Before starting, I took the time to clear out a number of branches that fell over the winter. In the process, I found this old bird’s nest on the ground. I left it there. :-)
Here are the before and after pictures. I’m afraid I didn’t match up my positioning very well! (click on the pictures to see them better)
The larger tree lying on the ground on the left came down last fall, and there’s another hung up in the brush behind it that has been there since before we moved in. The further into the grove we go, the more downed trees and branches there are. Clearing those, and other fire hazards, out is a major goal.
When we had a trail cam on a tree instead of a post, I used to trudge down that foot path, every morning, to switch out the memory card. This area has already seen a fair bit of clean up since we first moved here. The space to the left of the foot path has self-seeding flowers. I figure it would be good to get this done before they start growing again. Once they’re in full bloom, it’s a gorgeous mix of purple and green, almost all the way down.
In the distance of the after picture, you can see several poplars lying on the ground. I was trimming branches off of them when the battery died. I’ve left them there until I can come back to finish the trimming.
Because I goofed on my positioning, the elm tree in the foreground of the second picture is hiding where I cleared out some things between the two big poplars.
From the time it took me to take the before pictures, to the time it took for the battery to run out (which includes the time taken to clear out dead branches first, was only about 50 minutes. In that short time, I did as much as would have taken me at least twice that amount of time, with hand tools. Even using the reciprocating saw took longer.
These are the trimmed poles that will be used for building supports in our various garden beds. There will be quite a bit more, by the time I’m done clearing this area.
That baby chain saw made the job SO much faster and easier! And it was surprisingly quiet, and downright fun to use! I can certainly see why these things are selling out so quickly. The only down side is that the little bitty battery doesn’t last very long. I’d estimate about half an hour of cutting time in total. So having a second battery is going to be a necessity, and with the work I am expecting to do over the next few months, a third certainly won’t be overkill!
I still have to leave some of the larger stumplings to go back and cut to ground level later, with a larger cutting tool. Not as many as I’d expected to, though.
I’m now eagerly awaiting the battery charge, in hopes that I’ll be able to take it out again this evening! :-D Mind you, I could go out with manual tools, if I really wanted to, but they’re stored in the sun room with Ginger, so I’ll wait for the charger.
Another day where some things went to plan, and others… not so much!
But that’s not always a bad thing. :-)
While today wasn’t as warm as yesterday, we were still very mild. For the first time in ages, there was no ice at all on the cats’ water bowls!
Things are very messy out there. While checking on things, I saw that one purchase we made in the fall had most definitely paid off!
This is the waterproof case covering the plugs for the power cords between the cats’ house and the sun room. The cords themselves are encased in ice. I’d have to chip them loose. The waterproof case, however, seems to be absorbing heat and has melted out it’s own little space. It is not sitting in water at all, but everything around it is very wet.
We did have to buy them (it came in a three pack) online, because no local stores carried any. It was well worth the time and effort to find them!
Later this morning, I brought our van in to get the new EGR valve cleaned out of whatever crud came loose from the lines that were too far to reach to clean. It was just a drop off, and he was really busy with other customers, so I just left the keys in the office and headed out. Thankfully, it was much warmer than the last time the van was brought in, so I had no problems walking around outside while I waited.
There were two things that I wanted to get with my tax return. The garden soil, which will have to wait until it thaws out enough to be loaded onto the trucks, and a chainsaw. We’ve been doing some research and are leaning towards a battery operated chainsaw. I could have bought one online, but there is the place I took our riding mower to last summer, not far from the garage. They sell and service riding mowers, chain saws, weed trimmers and a whole host of landscaping related tools, and I wanted a chance to actually talk to someone and get feedback and advice.
I am glad I did!
Also, they had zero issues with medical mask exemptions. I walked in with my Mingle Mask, and they didn’t even blink. Bonus!
So I started talking to the guy about what I was thinking of (and what my budget was!), and about the sort of work I need to do. The main thing is, I’ve got those dead spruce trees to take down. They’re about 60 ft tall, and there’s probably 6 of them.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t really show me different models suitable for the job, as he just got new inventory for the season, and they weren’t even in the computer yet, never mind on the shelves. Of what he did have on display, they were waaayyy out of my budget, and designed more for commercial needs.
For a job like the dead trees, they recommended a gas powered chainsaw, because a battery powered one would drain way too quickly, even with the high end, high power models. And you don’t want to run out of juice half-way through cutting down a tree! Given what I would be using a chainsaw for the most, they suggested I might want to simply rent a gas powered chainsaw to take down the trees.
And when I mean “they”, I mean the owner/manager I was talking to, and the guy at the counter that chimed into the conversation.
Who turned out to be the Stihl rep that just happened to be there when I came in.
We are already fans of Stihl products. We’d had a Stihl chainsaw that we gave to my late brother when we last moved out of province and to a city. We had been very happy with it, and so was my brother. I don’t know what happened to it after he died, but it certainly isn’t here on the farm.
Having a guy from Stihl right there to give me advice was welcome, indeed!
We spent quite a bit of time talking about what I needed and, in the end, they suggested that I wait until the end of the month to get a battery powered chainsaw. That’s when a sale is starting, and I’d be able to get one with a higher powered battery for the price of one with the regular powered battery.
As we were talking about the dead trees I need to take down, I mentioned that we have other ones that are closer to the house that we plan to hire someone to take down. It would probably be easier – and safer – to get them to take down all the other dead trees as well. The manager started looking something up on the computer when I added that we’d already hired a particular company to take down the trees that were hanging over our roof, and to clear our power lines. As soon as I said the name, he turned back to me from the computer, saying he was just about to look up the contact information for the same company to give me as a recommendation! This company has a most excellent reputation. :-)
So I had pretty much decided that I would wait until the end of the month, then come back to buy the chainsaw, when I remembered something else I ask about. Little hand held chainsaws, and if they had any.
I swear, both of them got so excited! Especially the Stihl rep.
The manager wasn’t sure if he had any, then spotted them and pointed them out.
I was confused. All I saw was a display of weed trimmers.
It turned out the boxes were on the shelf above the trimmers. His last three of the dozen he’d just added to his inventory. There were none actually on display, because he’d never had a chance to add any!
They got one down for me and opened the box.
Oh, if only I’d had this in the last few years! I didn’t even know they existed until a month or two ago. There are so many jobs I’ve been doing with pruning saws, a carpenter saw, and the reciprocating saw (which seemed to be giving up the ghost when I last used it around the pump shack) – even buck saws – that would have been much, much easier with this tool!
Yup. I picked it up.
I now have a baby chainsaw.
Okay, it’s really a “cordless garden pruner”. Whatever. It’s a baby chainsaw. :-)
I decided not to wait until the sale at the end of the month, because there was no way of knowing there would be any left. These things are so insanely popular, the manufacture can’t keep up with the demand. I can totally see why.
As I was getting ready to pay for it and we continued to chat, I mentioned that I’d first discovered these existed online.
Both of them practically jumped in horror, almost simultaneously saying, “noooo!!!!Don’t get it online!” They both had stories to recount of people coming to them with these little chainsaws that they’d bought on Amazon that had already broken. The Stihl rep had a woman insist that she’d bought hers from Stihl, and wanted it repaired or replaced. A $20 hand held “chainsaw”. The one they carry – that I was in the process of buying – is just under $200. His comment to her had been, why would Stihl sell their $200 product for $20 – and also undercut their distributors?
My comment was, you get what you pay for!!!
So, I have a new “baby” in the house. One that’s going to get a real work out this spring! Eventually, I’ll be getting a second battery.
We will still need a chainsaw, but I will bring in the little electric one I found in the garage and see what they can do with it. It likely just needs to have its chain sharpened, but the chain might need replacing.
Which had reminded me that I want to bring in our new push mower. I mentioned this to them, telling them how it had worked fine when I bought it in the spring, then didn’t use it for most of the summer (when it got too dry for grass to grow), then suddenly I wasn’t able to start it anymore.
The first question they both asked: where do you buy your gas?
Yup. Just like with our van. That poor quality co-op gas! Even though we only used premium, it makes no difference. They had both seen all sorts of problems from people who bought their gas from the co-op. It seems that not only do they provide the poorest quality of fuel, but also the oldest. Gas is only good for about a month. This fuel seems to already be old before it gets to the stations. Leave it sitting in the tank of a lawn mower or something over the summer, then try and start it, and it’s likely the fuel is several months old. After I described what was happening with our new push mower, he figures he’ll probably have to take the carburetor off to clean it.
Sounds a lot like what was going on with the EGR valve in our van!
Speaking of which…
I was able to leave my purchase at the store until after I picked up the van. The new valve did, indeed, have crud in it. It only took the mechanic half an hour to clean it, so the bill was very small. He cleared the codes, too, of course. Once again, he recommended I just drive it as much as I could.
I needed to use up time so that I could stop at the post office after it re-opened on the way home, as we are expecting packages to come in this week, so I ran some errands, then drove to different areas where I could park and play Pokemon Go for a while. At one point, I was pulled over and left the engine running while doing a gym battle in the game. After finishing and getting ready to move on…
I saw the check engine light was on again!
After finding a better place to park, I hooked up the OBD II reader, and got the same two codes as before.
*sigh*
So I phoned the garage and left a message, adding that there was no need to call me back today. We might just leave it until I bring the van back for regular maintenance, which would be to put the summer tires back on, next month or so.
Too bad we didn’t have to run the van so much back when gas was really cheap for a while.
I wasn’t expecting to do another post today – and certainly not another garden post – but I just had to! I’ve had two awesome things happen since my last post.
One is that I got an email confirming our back ordered seeds from Veseys has just been shipped! It’s only two packets of seeds; the cherry and grape tomato medley, and the third variety of bush beans we had ordered. Now, the only things left outstanding are the items that will be shipped in time for planting in our zone. I’m really glad I ordered all these back in December. Quite a few of the varieties we ordered have since gone out of stock.
Then there is the other exciting bit.
Have I mentioned I have an awesome brother?
Have I also mentioned he has an equally awesome wife?
I got a call from her this evening, asking me to check my email. She had sent me this photo.
You see, I had asked them to keep an eye out for a pressure canner for me and this evening, while on their way to a romantic dinner out, they stopped at a Canadian Tire. Because who can turn down a quick run into Canadian Tire?
They found a pressure canner (yes, I know; it says cooker, but it’s the same tool) in stock!
It’s even one that was on some of the “top 10” lists I’d been looking at. Plus, it’s on sale!
Did I want her to pick it up for me?
Yes. Yes, I did!
Then, just moments after we hung up the phone, she called back. Since she was there, in the canning supplies section anyhow, was there anything else I wanted?
She found a couple of boxes of wide mouth snap lids to pick up for me as well.
We are now all set for both hot water bath and pressure canning, this fall.
My sister in law is awesome!
The Re-Farmer
Update: So… about that pressure canner…
As Carolee pointed out in the comments, this is a pressure cooker. I have read about them being used as canners, found instructions for them, etc. It was in the canning section, being sold as a pressure canner. It should be good. At least for small jars, like we would be using. At that size, I knew we’d never fit quart jars in there, but we aren’t planning on pressure canning anything in that size.
However, I asked my sister in law to go through the instructions to see, and apparently there is NOTHING about using this model as a canner in the instructions. Which is a bit irritating, since that’s what it was being sold as.
In the end, we’re going to keep it, rather than ask them to return it. That was a really good sale price, and we will make use of it in other ways.
We’ve been looking online for pressure canners around the province. I found one in the city, selling for $450. Well beyond our budget. I found another in a closer hardware store that was smaller and more affordable, but it’s not in stock. I am trying to avoid using Amazon, so I tried looking at more direct sources and manufacturers. They’re all in the US which means that, with the dollar difference, shipping costs and hidden expenses, I just assume it will cost double what the listed price is. Some are still affordable, but… out of stock, of course.
We will keep looking, but if how things are now is anything to go by, it looks like we will be freezing, dehydrating and pickling vegetables, rather than canning them! I do want to can things like meat, chili, soups and stews, too, and for that, we will need a pressure canner. We’ve canned chili before, but that was to keep them in the fridge for quick meals. Which was really handy. I’ve also canned soup stock but, again, it had to be refrigerated and used fairly quickly. In the long term, I want to have shelf-stable produce, and there is no getting around needing a pressure canner to ensure the food stays safe. Ultimately, we can do without. We have alternatives.
The first order of business was to test out my new tool on the sun room door frame.
I had gone into town to look at mini planers, but while perusing my options, I chose this tool, instead.
It’s a shaver. The shaving plate looks rather like a bada$$ Parmesan cheese grater. I figured the many cutting blades would make short work of the areas I needed to work on.
I was right. (For a change! LOL)
Using the blue paint marks from the door to show me exactly where I needed to shave off the wood – was well as smoothing my messy, messy cut somewhat – I did both the side of the door frame and the threshold.
What a fantastic little tool! The door can now close without catching anywhere on the frame or the threshold!
Then, because it worked so well, I did the threshold for the inner door, too. It now closes better, too.
The door is not quite done, yet. I’ve decided I need to take it off again, and move the hinges in about half an inch. Right now, when the door is closed, there is a lot of stress at the hinges, and I can actually see where parts of the door are starting to pull apart. This is a temporary fix with a salvaged door, but I’d like it to at least last the winter!
When we first set up the replacement door and attached it to the frame, we lined the hinges up on the door itself with the old door, then rehung it in the same recesses in the frame that the old door’s hinges were in.
With all the other problems that had to be dealt with, we still used the same spots, even after I filled the recesses with wood. Now that the door can actually close, I can see that the hinges are too far out, which basically forces the door to bend in order to close.
As I was thinking about this, and remembering the old door we were replacing, I am realizing what likely happened. When the sun room was built (which happened while we were living in another province), it likely had a different door. When that door was replaced with the door that was here when we moved in, the same recesses in the frame were used for the hinges. Remembering the problems we had to close that door before it finally fell apart, I am guessing that the house had already shifted and the frame was no longer straight, plus the door itself didn’t set the same way as the previous door, but whomever hung it didn’t bother doing anything to compensate for that. Over the years, my parents just put up with it. Meanwhile, the house would have continued to shift which would have made it worse, until it was in the condition it was in when we moved here.
If my guess is right, we hung this door up in the same location as the previous door, which was hung in the same location as the original door.
What I am now thinking of doing is taking the door off again, painting the frame, then hanging it back up with the hinges further in, rather than where the old door was hung.
Given the overnight temperatures, though, I will need to wait for a sunny, warmer day so the paint will have as much time to cure as possible before it starts dropping below freezing. Unfortunately, the long range forecasts are showing a steep drop in temperatures over the next few days, though it is supposed to flatten off after that.
For now, though, we have a working door!
The next job on the list was setting up the newly painted bird feeder stand.
I decided to set it like a fence post, in the same spot as before. The new metal support we have the suet cage hanging from was set aside, and self-seeded flowers and bird seed plants cleared away. Much of it was already empty, though. I don’t know what cats were fighting in there, but they flattened everything around the bases of the bird bath and feeder!
I half considered trying out one of the old post hole diggers we found, but as I dug, I immediately started hitting rocks, so I’m glad I didn’t! The soil is a lot deeper here than in other areas; I just started to hit sandy soil when I stopped. Very different from the soil further away from the house.
The larger rocks I dug out went back in, to help support the post.
Finally, the soil was returned and stamped down. It will now be left for a few days to settle before I hang anything on the hook.
If you look closely at the suet feeder in the back, you can see a chickadee on it!
Chickadees were not my only audience!
The suet feeder was returned, with the hook facing the bird bath. I deliberately placed the other hook facing away from the bird bath, to reduce the number of seeds that end up in it. That’s not as much of a concern with a suet feeder, though my daughter pointed out that it’s a lot closer to something the cats use to drink out of! So it will likely be moved further away.
The chickadees were quick to return, and are already using the support bars from under the platform feeder as perches! This might actually be a better use for them than to add another platform later.
The hook is on the north side of the post, but the post itself is leaning slightly to the south. This was not intentional, but rather than straightening it, I decided to leave it. It should compensate a bit for any pull from the weight of a full bird feeder. That would be more of an issue with those surprisingly fierce winds from the south that kept blowing the whole thing over until we stopped hanging a feeder on it.
I’m rather pleased with how it looks. Plus, it’s set deep enough in the ground that I should be able to hang a feeder on it without needing to stand on something. Previously, I could tip the whole thing over to reach but, obviously, that is no longer an option!
The real test will be how it holds up the next time we have a storm, while a feeder is hanging off of it!
The Re-Farmer 